American VS European Games (Covers+Adverts design)

hbhzth

I have found a somewhat common thread amongst the EU games, compared to the American ones. My claim is something like this:

EU games often had Cartoon-ish design and BIG logos in bright colors - while the US games had read pictures of people (often dressed up) showing the "heroes" and such.

We should keep to the period 1983-1988, as I think the relations between the two markets became less obvious later.

Anyone else noticed anything of the same - or other things that might be of interest to this thread? Let's try to build up a thread with reflections of what your experiences of the games were, be it on a playing modus or simply by seeing their advertisments in the magazines.

For me the advertisments were a doorway to my imagination and fantasy - I must have dreamt up many dreams and visuals of WHAT a game might be like. After I finally got to try it - it was seldom able to live up to my vivid images from looking at the adverts. Smile

Gurt · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:32 pm Post subject:

It's exactly the same with console games in the 90s. Occasionally magazines would write an article on the phenomenon back then. I'm pretty sure Super Play did, and I think maybe EGM did too. I mean, a classic example of that would be the Prince of Persia ad for consoles.

It also applies to arcade games too, Xevious is one example - from memory the EU/JP flyer showed the traditional artwork over a background consisting of screenshots, whereas the US artwork shoes a guy who looks like the Fonz with a flight helmet leaning on the arcade cabinet.

A related phenomenon is the tendency for the US to replace 'cute' characters in Japanese games with more 'adult' style ones.

robozz

hbhzth wrote:

EU games often had Cartoon-ish design and BIG logos in bright colors - while the US games had read pictures of people (often dressed up) showing the "heroes" and such.

Exactly, infact if you look at a cover and see a photograph picture, you can be almost 100% it's a USA release Smile

But I've also noticed that there's often a big difference in the actual quality of the covers.

Here are some USA to Europe comparisons, and by some strange coincidence they are all by Mindscape, I don't know why but they seem to be on a mission to take a perfectly good looking EU cover and making it worse Rolling Eyes

USA

Europe

USA

Europe

USA

Europe

USA

Europe

USA

Europe

Mase · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:51 pm Post subject:

Possibly the best/worst example:

US

EU

Romppainen · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:36 pm Post subject:

Christ, at least they didn't change the US title to Spandex Goof.

Beamrider · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:38 pm Post subject:

Romppainen wrote:

Christ, at least they didn't change the US title to Spandex Goof.

JAJAJAJAJA !! :P
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